"Mike McCrea" wrote in message
om...
Sounds like you have some pretty big canoes in those parts Myron.
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KINSHASA (Reuters) - At least 23 people died when a large motorized
canoe capsized on Lake Kivu in the east of the Democratic Republic of
Congo late on Sunday, the United Nations said on Monday.
"The provisional death toll is 23 ... 23 bodies have been recovered.
Another 43 people have been rescued but the rescue operation is
ongoing so this may rise," said Madnodje Mounoubai, a spokesman for
the U.N. mission in the eastern Congolese town of Bukavu.
The boat was going from the town of Kalehe across Lake Kivu to Goma, a
town some 25 miles away. A Kalehe resident said he believed just over
80 people were aboard the vessel, which was also laden with manioc and
bananas.
Yeah, and lots of regular sized ones also. They call them 'pirogues', and
they are essentially dugout canoes with some modifications, which are either
poled, motored (the larger ones) or paddled with 6-8 foot long paddles with
teardrop shaped blades and straight shafts (no T grip). They are the primary
source of transport around here, as the bulk of the population is dirt poor
and live around and on the river. The smaller ones are about 20 feet long
(and are rare), the average one is about 25-30 foot long, and there are some
monsters that are 30-40 feet long, or more. The big ones (60 feet or more)
are on the lakes, like Lake Kivu, not the river.
They are long, skinny, very heavy, and when they are being paddled in the
current there is only millimeters of freeboard....sort of like poling a log.
To see these guys out in the middle of a 2 mile wide river with viscious
currents and rafts of floating vegetation, standing on something that is
inches from sinking is awe-inspiring. I think this is sort of like poor New
England families driving the family beater until long after it should have
been scrapped: pirogues are so important to daily life that they continue to
paddle them long after the sides have been worn down, the wood is completely
waterlogged, then transoms have rotted off and been patched with steel drum
metal or old road signs, etc.
I haven't had much chance to get out in one as its really hard to mix with
the locals here. I have had some paddle around me while I was out fishing,
and one time I was fishing above a narrow chute between some islands; it was
essentially a short class 3 wave train with a powerful eddy below on the
left and a large pool draining into it from above. These two guy came
downstream, standing bow and stern, paddling with long blades. They were
definately younger fishermen (late 20s) who were mixing up their fishing
with some fun, and had been paddling together for awhile. The sliced through
the pool, set up perfectly for the wave train, caught the shoulder of the
top wave, neatly slid into the eddy, the bowman did a perfect standing bow
draw while the stern man executed a perfect standing bow sweep to slice an
exquisite tight eddy turn. They stood there looking at the wave train for a
split second, then with a pair of perfectly timed strokes, cut into the
current, did an excellent carved turn and continued down the river. In
addition to them demonstrating such stunningly poetic skills, it was
serendiptious that I was probably the most qualified person in this part of
the continent to appeciate seeing them do it.
If you do a google images search on 'pirogue', you'll see some good pictures
of the smaller, day to day ones. Look at the 4th picture in the top row, and
also the 2nd and 3rd in the 5th row of the browser window.
--riverman
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